Wednesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
·
Wednesday, April 27, 2022
·
58 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
Follow Steven on
Twitter
Ooopps.
So being an obvious flake isn’t good for investor confidence?
Not that there is anything analogous between Enron and Tesla (to the best of my knowledge anyway), but among the many things that put Ken Lay between a rock and a hard place was margin calls on loans he took out on his stock. musk would do well to tread carefully.
Madison Cawthorn tried to bring a loaded gun through airport security. There really must be some kind of contest going on in the Republican caucus as to who can be the biggest idiot.
Another case of voter fraud in New Hampshire. Anyone want to guess what he’s registered as?
@Jen: I read yesterday (at Popehat?) that this was the 3rd or 4th time he’s done that. It’s not unusual in such cases, but he has yet to face any legal consequences. Maybe a person so serially cavalier with firearms should. As Jim Wright says, there are no accidents with firearms, only negligence.
@Jen:
It’s actually the second time in about 15 months Cawthorn has pulled this stunt. The first time, the gun was unloaded. This time, he upped the ante with a loaded gun. Next month he has to go to court for driving with a revoked license.
Obviously he’s trying to prove that he’s tough. What do laws matter to tough guys like him?
Hold on to your sprinkler heads Californians:
I don’t see things getting better anytime soon.
The only proper response.
Somethings never change.
Last evening, I was going through some photo archives and came across a picture of Johnny Cash with Vivian Liberto. Curious to know who she was (I didn’t know she was his first wife), I googled her. A Wikipedia page came up that had this bit of information.
The article went on to detail that Liberto had a Black ancestor, the result of a slave holders rape of a slave.
On the Right the tactics don’t change, they just get applied to new circumstances.
@sam: Love it.
Marjorie Taylor Greene told a group of ultra-right-wing Roman Catholics that their church is run by Satan–and they loved it.
http://www.salon.com/2022/04/27/marjorie-taylor-greene-to-right-wing-catholic-site-how-come-god-hasnt-destroyed-america/
Pobrecito…
@Jen: @CSK: Well well well… It appears the 3rd time (or 4th or maybe only the 2nd) is a charm:
I guess there is no 2nd Amendment in Charlotte, NC (s//):
@OzarkHillbilly:
No doubt Cawthorn will seize this opportunity to complain loudly that the leftists are denying him his God-given Second Amendment rights.
Hard to believe this little twerp got elected to anything.
@CSK: He’s a victim of coicumstance!
Go read the whole, it won’t take long.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Donny Junior and Madison will be headlining at the Utah Freedom Festival on June 17 and 18. I’m sure Madison will speak of the abrogation of his rights.
@CSK:
Reading about those Church Militant folks brings to mind a comment by an Anglican priest (only partly joking):
@CSK:
The thing about reactionary Catholics (and Jews) is that they seem to think they have a seat at the table ready for them when the Evangelicals take over. The are so deluded that they don’t get that they’ll be next.
@CSK: Nothing screams marathon of grievance like “Utah Freedom Festival”.
I just saw someone on Twitter refer to Tucker Carlson’s testicle tanning devices as “scrotiseries” and I cannot stop laughing.
@Beth:
I think they believe that their shared politics will exempt them from retribution–and they may be right. Look at the way fundamentalists have eagerly embraced Donald Trump, despite his sexual transgressions.
Shermer makes a good case in his lecture series that much of what gets people to believe in conspiracy theories is related to flaws and faults in cognition. Too much is involved to get into it, and I wasn’t taking notes while listening and driving. What gets me is why presenting evidence to the contrary doesn’t suffice to get such people to change their minds.
I’ve never believed any conspiracy theories at all. Oh, I thought some UFO reports did show aliens here and there, but not that there was a global conspiracy to keep this hidden. Looking back, I always turned to evidence of some sort, or wanted evidence presented.
Here’s a little-known conspiracy theory: the Titanic couldn’t have been sunk by an iceberg, because steel is stronger than ice.
Ok, but then why all the warnings about ice in the shipping lanes Titanic and other ships along the transatlantic routes? Not to mention many well documented cases of ships having been damaged, some sunk, after colliding with icebergs.
Things like that.
@Kathy: Flour is softer than a skull, but if I drop a five hundred pound bag on your head, see how you like it.
Clever “gotchas” are often just a waste of time.
@Kathy:
This reminds me of all those idiotic “false flag” theories, such as the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School didn’t really happen; it was staged to bring about gun confiscation and all the participants were “crisis actors.” Yeah, right. All the dead kids and teachers were crisis actors, plus the grieving friends and relatives, the survivors/witnesses, the cops, the EMS, the hospital personnel, the funeral home staff, the ministers, rabbis, and priests who officiated at the funerals, the reporters…
Hundreds and hundreds of crisis actors, none of whom ever broke the vow of secrecy they took.
@OzarkHillbilly:
The Washington Examiner (the Examiner!), had a piece up yesterday that Cawthorn is being looked at for possible insider trading in a pump and dump scheme around crypto currencies.
@Sleeping Dog:
The Examiner also reported on his gun escapade. I think they might not be excessively fond of him.
He’s like a malevolent frat boy, isn’t he?
@CSK:
@Kathy:
Honestly, I suspect that a large element of why people believe in conspiracy theories is because they want to.
The more cynical use them as an excuse to “fight dirty”. e.g. There’s a liberal media bias, so we’ll create a media arm that has an explicit republican/conservative agenda. Or any of the blood libels used to justify violence perpetrated against Jewish people throughout the centuries.
Other people look for others to blame for their circumstances (similar to the above one), e.g. it’s an outside force that’s causing the problems.
Others are looking to comfort themselves. e.g. you’re not stupid, you figured out the conspiracy! The people who don’t believe that the moon is made of Styrofoam are the real idiots.
Obviously there’s a mixture of the three and they all play on one another.
Some of them sorta know it’s BS, but there are some true believers out there, and I suspect that they buy into it because they feel powerless and have a very poor understanding of how things work.
@Mike in Arlington:
I would only add to what you said by noting that believing in a conspiracy makes the believer feel important, as if he or she is privy to something significant.
@CSK:
@Mike in Arlington:
If you’re interested in such things, I do recommend Shermer’s lecture course. The downside is that it’s one of those Audible originals short(er) Great Courses series, so it lacks an accompanying PDF. That would have been a good thing to have for the conspiracy theory detection kit (he credits Sagan for his baloney detection kit from The Demon Haunted World).
BTW, the objection that no one among dozens, hundreds, thousands, and even hundreds of thousands, of people involved never said anything publicly about it, never blew a whistle, and never even slipped up, is “explained” by the assumption that all-powerful groups are all-powerful. they can keep all these myriads of people quiet.
I was rolling my eyes as I wrote that.
@Kathy:
I prefer Ben Franklin’s wisdom on the topic: “Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead.”
An interesting comment from a Ukrainian soldier that relates to Elon Musk:
Though, I’ve also heard that, though Starlink provided the units at cost, the actual cost was paid by the US government.
The details, as with a lot of things Musky, are disputed.
@CSK:
Yes, young Madison is not popular and in corners of the conservative world. There seems to be more active dislike for him than MTG or Brobert. The only thing that will save him in the primary will be the number of other R’s running.
@JohnSF:
Maybe this has been discussed here, and I missed it.
I recently mentioned that Musk’s attempt to take Tesla public turned sour when the head of Saudi Arabia’s PIF made public statements that Musk claimed were contrary to what they said to him and his team privately.
I also read that Musk and Gates had a meeting set up to discuss the former contributing to the latter’s climate change investment fund.
Gates texted Musk that he had just landed. Musk replied, “cool.” But then, Musk asked if Gates still had a $500m short position in Tesla. Gates replied that he hadn’t closed his position out. Musk canceled the meeting because to him, he couldn’t take Gates seriously because he shorted the company doing more than anyone else to fight AGW.
Am I right to think that these actions reveal hypocrisy on Musk’s part?
Re: the Sauis, dude was totally fine partnering with a regime that isn’t exactly known for its classical liberal stances on markets and free speech, but soured on them because they embarrassed him publically.
Re: Gates, on one level, it just seems like pettiness. But on another, it seems like Musk doesn’t actually GAF about AGW unless it feeds his own company. And I can’t help but think that part of it may be that he doesn’t want to fund potential competitors even though one of the key bases for free markets is that competition benefits firms.
Florida bans ranked choice voting.
@OzarkHillbilly: Indeed! If Tesla stock loses enough value, he may find himself unable to raise the money at all, but I don’t know details and limits about margins for borrowing against equity to purchase assets.
@Jen: Democratic-Farmer-Labor?
[buzzer]
Rats! 🙁 Do I get another chance?
@Sleeping Dog: Why am I not surprised? He’s like the spoiled little rich kid who always got away with everything because Mommy and Daddy kept bailing him out. Dagnabbit… some lawyer coined a term for it and I’m brain farting on it.
AFFLUENZA! That’s it.
@CSK:
Joe, a hardcore conspiracy theorist, dies and goes to heaven. There he meets God, who tells him he can ask Him one question.
Joe asks, “Who really killed JFK?”
God answers, “Lee Harvey Oswald.”
“Damn!” Joe says “This goes higher than I thought!”
Stolen from Shermer’s lectures.
@JohnSF: Yeah, musk has done a good thing or 2. But every time he blows his own horn (a little too loudly for a little too long) for doing a good thing, I can’t help but wonder what his original motivation in doing it was. And every time he does something that goes awry or makes him look like a fool, he lashes out.
@JohnSF: There ARE problems that can be solved with violence. You just don’t want me deciding which one’s they are. 🙁
@Beth: Surely you’re not suggesting that Evangelicals would betray brothers and sisters in the faith? [horrifyingly shocked face (with head exploding) emoji]
[eye roll]
@just nutha:
But sometimes only if you have the element of surprise…
@CSK: The omerta rules of the gun-confiscation mafia makes the real Mafia look like a church social. Nothing else explains it.
just nutha:
It’s possible I’m mistaken on this, but I think heresy is still an offense under Canon Law in England, which the Ecclesiastical Courts (aka the Court of the Arches) can try.
But any civil or criminal punishment would be subject to appeal to the Privy Council (or maybe now English Supreme Court?).
No cases have actually been brought since the 19th Century; and in effect heresy is now determined by Convocation, with the only penalty being excluded from the Church, and no longer being invited to the vicarage tea party.
just nutha:
It’s possible I’m mistaken on this, but I think heresy is still an offense under Canon Law in England, which the Ecclesiastical Courts (aka the Court of the Arches) can try.
But any civil or criminal punishment would be subject to appeal to the Privy Council (or maybe now English Supreme Court?).
No cases have actually been brought since the 19th Century; and in effect heresy is now determined by Convocation, with the only penalty being excluded from the Church, and no longer being invited to the vicarage tea party.
@just nutha:
Oh, quite so. Just like the Boston Marathon Bombing was a sinister Obama-engineered plot to get us all used to living under martial law.
There’s been considerable reporting of Russia cutting gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria.
Something less reported that I picked up on in related news:
Germany has been rapidly reconfiguring it’s oil imports and usage; Russian oil is now down from about a third before the war to 12% and still falling.
The main user remaining in Germany is the Schwedt oil refinery complex.
This is directly linked to the Druzhba pipe, and owned by Rosneft.
And is refusing to stop using oil from that pipeline, saying it will shut down rather than switch sources.
Which would result in major shortages in NW Germany, including shutting down Berlin airport.
So the German government is passing legislation to expropriate Schwedt if Rosneft continues to balk.
And has struck a deal with Poland to connect Schwedt to the Plock pipeline to Gdansk terminal, enabling Schwedt to run on tanker oil shipped to Gdansk, while the smaller pipeline to Rostock tanker terminal is upgraded.
In other words: Germany is now nearly in position to go to zero on Russian oil.
This is very significant.
@JohnSF: Very significant. I said not too long ago that I thought Putin screwed up by starting his little adventure in late February when the demand for gas and oil would be just beginning it’s seasonal drop. It gives the Europeans plenty of time to switch to alternate sources.
@JohnSF:
There is controversy about why the USSR collapsed, specifically why it collapsed when it did.
One school of thought lays the credit on the feet of St. Ronald of Reagan, who increased military spending to a level the Soviets couldn’t match. Another maintains the crash of crude oil prices in the 80s left the Soviets very short on hard currency.
I maintain it collapsed because it was a repressive regime with a terrible economic system, which nonetheless claimed to be the bestest country in all of history. But both factors noted above might have contributed a great deal. The collapse of an empire doesn’t only have one cause.
So, if a shortage of foreign exchange hurt the USSR badly enough to edge it into collapse, among other factors, then it won’t do much for Putin’s empire either.
I don’t say Mad Vlad’s empire will collapse, much less that it will do do shortly. Other circumstances are different. For one thing, Russia has a better economic system now, though the repression is catching up (if it ever left). But losing oil revenue in hard currency will hurt him.
@JohnSF:
Not all refineries are set up to handle all kinds of crude oil efficiently. Changing the setup can be expensive, both time and money. Eg, the ban on Russian crude imports to the US will hit Valero harder than most other US refiners because Valero made a big bet some years back on specializing in heavy sour crude. First Venezuelan, then one of the Russian grades. To replace the Russian imports, they need to find not just volume, but volume of the right kinds of crude.
Yesterday I spent half the morning formatting a very difficult document in WORD, which was to serve as a template for a further 8 documents for a like number of proposals we need to present in short order. I then spent the time until lunch with a bunch of related stuff.
After lunch, the file I labored over during the morning was gone from the file server. The server backup didn’t catch it, either. I know strange things happen in servers, but odds are someone deleted it, probably inadvertently.
I had to do it over, and then I had to sit through a 15 minute lecture by a manager on why it’s not proper to name the second iteration of the file “DELETE THIS FILE AND I WILL KILL YOU appendix A template”.
@Michael Cain:
Norway produces at least some heavy sour oils in the same general bracket as the Volga-Urals mix from Druzhba, IIRC.
Under EU emergency legislation they could be diverted from out-of-EU markets (if any) to in-EU use.
Whether the numbers add up, dunno.
German analysts seem to think so.
@Michael Cain:
@JohnSF:
A quick check on some sources and back of envelope calculations.
Schwedt runs at about 200,000 bpd, Norwegian production c.2 million bpd.
Only a minority of Norwegian is medium to heavy sour, but China alone currently gets around 100,000 bpd from the Sverdrop medium/heavy sour output, and field total is around 400 k bpd.
Looks like the Germans have reasons for their confidence in this matter.
If EU invokes emergency measures, China may be rather pissed off, though.
Lesson for Xi: Putin pandering may have unfortunate unexpected side effects.
C’est la guerre.
@Kathy: I dunno. Seems reasonable to me!
@Just nutha:
I know, right?
Oh, the irony. Rufo is threatening to sue because someone misquoted him.
His rise to prominence was built completely on deleting words in quotes, rearranging things, and imputing motives that aren’t there. Oh, and Weingarten’s assertion about Rufo’s goal is far more accurate than Rufo’s assessment of the goals of CRT.
@Kurtz: If only someone would sue Rufo…..
@Sleeping Dog: “Yes, young Madison is not popular and in corners of the conservative world. There seems to be more active dislike for him than MTG or Brobert”
Well, yes. Because he said that Republicans had coke orgies. If he’d said it was Nancy Pelosi snorting heroin off AOL’s ass. he’d be up for speaker.
@wr: Um, that’s AOC’s ass. Not AOL.